Category: Hong Kong As It Is

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang attended a meeting with secondary students this past week. It was an informal occassion where students would have opportunity to interact with the head of their government. It was reported that the students were not happy with the meeting because they found Mr Tsang not a sincere speaker.

Why did the students have such an unfavorable impression? Let me show you the kind of answer Mr Tsang gave the students in the Q&A session.

Q (a student): What advice do you have for us?

A (Mr Tsang): You should make use of the “one country two systems” to wring from the Central Government (ie. Beijing Government) what is advantageous for Hong Kong.

Is this a “person” talking? It sounds more like an official giving lecturing to his/her subordinates, as in the mainland China. His answer is so boring and so impersonal. And I assure you this style is very typical of him.

Whenever I hear Mr Tsang talk like a top official in the Mainland China, I conjure up a bleak picture for Hong Kong. He never succeeds, in his public speeches, in convincing me that he is a leader of imagination and humanity, not to mention the ability to inspire in people.

Hong Kong is sadly a city without leadership. Will the city have one day? I doubt it, under the current “one country two systems”.

The spying case of Hong Kong journalist Ching Cheong has sent shocks to the Hong Kong community. The seasoned journalist known for his patriotism was sentenced to jail for five years by the course in China on charges of spying. Upon hearing the verdict, a sense of frustration and pessimism prevails, espescially among the journalists here, and those having believed that China is well on the way to modernity.

First of all, the trial is clouded in secrecy. No evidence is clearly presented and there is no clear explanation of why Ching is accused of spying and what intelligence he has leaked.

Secondly, there is contradiction in the court papers. The court says Ching surrendered himself, which appears to be a total fabrication. Ching did not surrender but was arrested when visiting China. Also, in the first court paper issued, Ching was accused of leaking top secret state information. In the second court paper, the intelligence he leaked was classified as secret only.

I found out because of the case, that in China there are three classifications of “secrecy” of state intelligence. The top secret goes to state information such as military move, important diplomatic and economic information, and the state leaders’ STATE OF HEALTH.

The second level of secrecy goes to information such as news of resignation of the state leaders, their temperaments and expertise.

The third level of secrecy goes to news of plagues, corruption of local officials, etc.
So it is obvious that if you are a journalist in Hong Kong or China, you can easily step into the trap and report something that belongs to state secrets and land in the jail like Ching Cheong. No wonder the sentence of Ching Cheong has sent a chilling shock to the local journalists.

Hong Kong has been a major outpost in reporting China news of depth and a wide range of topics. If Hong Kong’s journalists are silenced because of the threat of spy charges, the news about China are doomed to be unexciting and more pro-government.

Hong Kong’s Chief Executive says, to be eligible for canditates for the territory’s top job, one must be patriotic and competent.

Please tell me any other place where to be elected for the head of the government, the candidates being patriotic is one of the must-have conditions. It has been 9 years since Hong Kong’s handover to China and I am increasingly uncomfortable with the way the top government officials talk. Their words sound so inhuman and artifical, like that made from a political container.

It cannot be more apparent to me that a leader, first and foremost, should serve the people, and to be able to accomplish this, he or she must be competent and have the leadership. What else should matter?

It is 32 Celsius degrees – sweltering hot. It is Saturday. It is first of July. I, with thousands of others, joined the democracy marching demanding universal suffrage, on the streets of Hong Kong. I don’t think many of my friends in Hong Kong will attend the march, so I just go there alone. I took the bus from kennedy town to Wanchai, and joined the crowd there, walking for about one and a half hours to the government heaquarters in central.

People from all walks of life join in the rally. I see a man with long dirty hair hanging at the back, carrying an umbrella, and wearing a pair of broken cotten shoes, mothers and daugthers, young lovers, a man in his forty walking by himself…people are not shouting slogans at their top of voices, but there is passion and unflinching will there. “we want universal suffrage”, some shouted. quiet tears well from my eyes, strangely. i am touched by the sense of solidarity and the will to overcome barriers just to fight for things valuable in life.

I am bebating in the morning: shall I go to the rally in this unbearable hot weather, and alone? I decide to go, at the end. Because I know I would hate myself if I didn’t go. I don’t want to be a person of words only, not actions. If I believe it is people’s right to choose someone to represent them; if I believe democracy is about people being able to participate in the process of governing and decision making process; if I belive Hong Kong has been a hugely capitalist place where only businessmen’s interests are taken care of, then I should go to this democracy rally to demand for universal suffrage.